The President of the Indoor Tanning Association Defends the Indefensible
“My role is not to tell you what the risk is. My role is to give you the other side of the story about the benefits of UV exposure.”
- Dan Humiston, President of the ITA
The above quote from a recent Time article is the Indoor Tanning Association’s response to new research that once and for all condemns indoor tanning as perilously carcinogenic. Just as Joe the Camel’s role is to depict the “cool” side of cigarettes, Mr. Humiston and his Association have but one goal—defending the practice of indoor tanning. Refuting sound science and willfully deceiving and endangering consumers, especially teen girls—these present no obstacle to the ITA.
However, this quotation represents an uncharacteristically candid thought from the Association. In essence, the quote reads: “the ITA has a stated agenda of advocating under any circumstances for the indoor tanning industry.” They stand to gain nothing by telling the truth about the risks of UV radiation. Instead they focus on the relatively insignificant benefits, such as curing Vitamin D deficiency. Although Vitamin D deficiency is not a trivial health risk, it is eminently curable. Is it worth subjecting one’s skin to unnatural, intensified and carcinogenic UV radiation when there are numerous safer ways to avoid the problem?
With this logic, if the Association represented surgeons, they would have us amputating arms to fix broken fingers. The ITA “give[s] you the other side of the story” all right. Rather than merely spending more time outside in mild sunlight or taking Vitamin D supplements, the ITA would have you risk melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. If that’s the other side of the story, I think I’ll stick to this side.
(Post was prepared with the assistance of
Steve Berk, I've been researching the benefits of UV rays for 6 years. Approximately 2 hours a day for the past 4 years. There are now over 2500 studies or medical references to the benefits of UV rays. The WHO has how many studies they drew their opinions from? Are you aware many of those exact studies(I believe 5)were previously discredited? Do you know most of those studies were done on type 1 and type 2 skin types? Are you aware that if you remove all them from the study there was no increase? Are you saying all the other skin types hould be grouped with these scare tactics and put themselves at severe risk of getting healthy doses of Vitamin D from controlled UV sources? Did you watch PBS yesterday where the Dr. Michal Melamed did a story on how we're hurting our childrens health by going overboard with sunscreen? I have over 3000 articles collected if you would like a real education on this topic since you seem so opinionated about it. I'm almost 50 years old I'm in perfect health and I actually opened a tanning salon to give our area a salon with a well educated staff to help keep clients from overexposure and from getting vitamin d deficiency during winter months. There are now 60 different illnesses that are related to lack of vitamin d. Might I remind you that deaths from melanoma have not increased and the largest group to get melanoma are men over 50 with a 300% increase. They are the smallest percentage age group to visit a salon. You can bet Dan will never die from melanoma though, he's kept from sunburning his entire life. I hope I've gotten you to open your eyes somewhat so you can now shed some light on the topic you obviously know very little about. Have a bright day! :)
Excellent response DJMDE
More facts can be found on sites such as www.uvtalk.com
Thank you DJMDE for putting out the basic facts that help people to understand the full picture. The Vitamin D stories are getting out, but they are causing a lot of discomfort to those who have held strong anti-sun beliefs for so long. The fact is that God gave us a finely balanced system. Too much sun or UV you have a problem, too little and you have a problem. Sunbeds help keep the balance due to our lack of sun exposure.
"They stand to gain nothing by telling the truth about the risks of UV radiation. Instead they focus on the relatively insignificant benefits, such as curing Vitamin D deficiency."
That's embarrassing that someone claiming to be representing a University would use cultural perception to prove a point. Why would there be any life at the equator if "the truth about UV risks" are as clear as you claim they are?
Clearly this is not the case since only about 5000 people die from melanoma in total. That doesn't mean all are caused by UV. Even if every one of those were caused by UV exposure that's 5000 out of 300,000,000 people.
You are worried about something that in any other case would be considered statistically acceptable? Skin cancer is caused by unhealthy living that can include just living life.
100,000 people die from staph infection from hospital visits every year at the cost of $20B. Why is the death of 100K people in the care of doctors ok yet the RISK of getting something that can be classified as cancer yet kills less than 1% of the people diagnosed with it is?
Skin cancer is a 25min doctor visit. Staph infection is certain death.
And that's only hospital visits. What about people that have pill addictions? Medical malpractice, doctor screw-ups?
By the numbers, NOT visiting the doctor is probably the healthiest thing you can do unless it's to remove or replace a body part in an emergency.
As for the 5000 people that die from skin cancer every year, MINERAL OIL is listed to be as cancer causing as UV exposure and Dermatologists recommend this as the best moisturizer a human being can use and it's in 99% of all dermatologist approved SPF creams.
It would seem fair to assume that the million cases of non-lethal cases of skin cancer a year can be due to the abuse of mineral oil based SPF creams. If not, show the world how SPF has worked at reducing skin cancer since its initial push on people 30 years ago.
It hasn't and that's why Dermatologists are scrambling to do whatever they can to hide this fact that they have been wrong this entire time meaning they would be liable for the health problems of 100s of millions of people.
But I'm sure a person that has been educated by the good University of North Carolina would know this as you have access to labs and equipment to actually do the tests yourself. You aren't just pushing old wives tales as fact are you?
I can see his side of the argument. There's a whole lot of bad things that as long as you do them in moderation, you can get by doing it. Its possible that tanning beds fall into that category. Most people that tan that I know of though, go crazy with it. It's almost like an addictive drug to these people.
I do agree that people did respond "duh" when told that tanning beds cause cancer, but I don't exactly think it was because its the same as the sun.
I wrote a blog about the association's fight back as well, check it out at http://www.livinginshade.com/2009/08/indoor-tanning-association-fights-back/